Single-Use Plastics in Southeast Asia: Leveraging Behavioural Science to Reduce Consumption and Waste

Single-use plastics (SUPs) have become one of the most pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges facing the world, contributing significantly to the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity, climate change, and pollution (Schmidt et al., 2024). While many governments have developed a range of policy solutions to the problem of SUPs – most notably through the inclusion of bans, fees, and better regulation of waste management systems in national plastic action plans – these efforts have largely been limited to traditional policy tools. New policy approaches are needed to move beyond framing the challenge as one of individual consumer behaviour hindered by lack of information and understanding to integrate new approaches informed by the behavioural sciences, which seek to take a holistic, encompassing approach to behaviour change across sectors that places the individual, businesses, and the public sector within the larger plastic consumption and production system.